Ever Just The Same
by The Green Archer
Summary: The prince thinks about the challenges of parenthood following an outburst with his six-year-old son. Experimental companion fic to Après L'Enchantement.


It was an accident, the first time he yelled at his son. Alexandre had come into his bureau to show him a bird feather he found outside with Chip. At the same time, Cogsworth had come to announce an urgent taxing matter with the Duc de Paquet, who was waiting for the prince in the atrium. Remembering that the duke was not a patient man, the prince told his son to wait for him while he went to talk with their unpleasant visitor. Fifteen minutes later, he returned to find a disaster. Alexandre had scribbled all over his unfinished trading agreement with the French East India Company. The _same_ agreement he'd spent nearly a week putting together with Cogsworth and his uncle. Needless to say, he was positively furious. The old beast came out in him, and he snapped.

"Do you realize what you've done? You're six years old now! How many times do I have to tell you not to touch anything?"

These words, along with several other angry outbursts sent Alexandre in tears to his room. Belle, who had arrived in time to see the aftermath of the argument, gave her husband a reprimanding look before handing Catherine to him and following their son upstairs. As their mother, Belle always took time to talk to her children when they were upset. The servants often said that if the master was the leader of the province, his wife was the glue that held their family and household together. Now she had made it was that her husband was in the doghouse.

It was unsurprising to say that the prince's outburst with his son put a heavy damper on his mood for the rest of the evening. After taking dinner alone in his office he went down to the parlor, reading over a letter from the prince of Belgium as a way of avoiding the scolding he'd receive from his wife when he went to bed. Even then, he could barely focus on the foreign aristocrat's words. His thoughts kept drifting back to the sight of his son's tear-stained face as he ran away from him.

If there was anything the prince could say about the eight years he'd been a parent, it was that it wasn't easy. But then again, nothing about his life after the curse had exactly been a walk in the park. While Belle had improved his manners immensely, the beast's old temper still had ways of coming back. When he found out Belle was pregnant not even a year after their marriage he had every reason to believe he would be the worst father in existence. He barely remembered what his own father was like to know how to behave in front of a child. With his raging temper, he was sure that any offspring of his would hate him, fear him – or both.

But then Vincent was born, and he was practically an angel. By the age of five he could speak perfectly fluent French and English and read entire storybooks by himself. He was kind and helpful, to both his parents and the servants. Earlier that year he'd even suggested that they open a soup kitchen in the local village so the poor could have a place to eat and warm themselves on Christmas. The prince swore that with the ideas running through his boy's eight-year-old head, he could hand the kingdom to him tomorrow and he'd make it the next best thing since Constantinople. He was the complete opposite of the prince he'd been at his age, which he considered a very big blessing indeed.

But Vincent's younger brother, Alexandre was a different story. While Vincent had rarely cried as an infant, Alexandre cried constantly. Belle and her husband spent so many hours helping him sleep that when they found out they were expecting again four years later the prince had to fight with Belle to put the new baby in a separate room. As much as he loved his children, he could not sleep with crying babies in the West Wing anymore on top of the demanding hours he spent maintaining the kingdom. In many ways, he missed the days when his schedule consisted of morning walks with Belle and reading books with her in the library. He knew Belle missed those days too, but for slightly different reasons.

And while he assumed that Alexandre would settle down by the time he became a toddler, instead he became more restless.

"Why?" Alexandre asked when his father told to him that it was time for bed.

"Why?" Alexandre asked when his father told him to say grace at the dinner table.

"Why?" he asked when his father told him to thank Maurice for the rocking horse he'd made for him and his brother at his workshop.

Alexandre always put his father's temper to the limit with his persistent questioning. Sometimes the prince had to think hard to remember that he'd acted the same way when he was his age.

* * *

"Papa?"

The prince opened his eyes to a dimly lit room. He must have fallen asleep and let the fire die out in the fireplace…again. He rubbed his sore neck and turned around to see a pair of blue eyes peering at him from behind the parlor doorway.

"Alex?" he said. "What are you still doing up?"

"I wanted to say sorry for ruining your paper, papa," Alexandre replied, fidgeting nervously with his housecoat as he spoke. "Are you going to ground me?"

The expression on his face was so pitiful that even the meanest creature in the world would not be able to look at him without feeling sympathy for him. "Alex, _viens ici."_

Alexandre hesitated. He was afraid that if he entered the room, his father would start yelling at him again. But then he remembered what his mother had told him about being a "big boy" and knew he had to be brave, no matter what. He walked around the armchair so he was standing face to face with his father.

"I'm not going to ground you, Alex," his father said to him. "You just need to understand that what you did today was very inconsiderate. And do you know why?"

"Because I touched your things without permission," his son replied, staring at his feet.

"Yes you did. Very important things. That trading agreement was going to help a lot of citizens who don't have warm clothes or medicine for the winter. You also hurt my feelings by lying to me when I asked you to tell me about what you did to the paper. But…," he paused. "Do you know who else made a mistake today?"

"Who?" Alexandre asked, looking up at him curiously.

"Me."

"You?" His son was surprised. "But you're a grown-up! I thought that grown-ups never make mistakes."

"Well, that's not completely true," said the prince. "I lost my temper and hurt my son's feelings. That was a mistake."

"I didn't mean to make you angry, papa," Alexandre explained. "I'm just not good at being patient like Vince. Maybe I'm...a bad prince."

"You can definitely be a little impatient sometimes, _petit,_ but I wouldn't call you a bad prince."

"What can be worse than me?" Alexandre asked, unsure if he could believe him or not.

"Well," the prince paused. He hadn't told his children about the Beast yet. Especially when they were toddlers, admitting that he had imprisoned their mother and grandfather in the castle was not exactly his idea of a bedtime story. But now that they were older he knew he couldn't put the truth off for much longer. He would tell them soon, he just needed time to figure out how to _explain_ it first. "When I was a little bit older than your brother, I knew a boy who never listened to anyone," he said instead. "He had everything he wanted, but he kept on asking for more, never thanking the people who served him. He was spoiled, selfish and unkind. And then one day, he made a terrible mistake, and he was punished him for it."

"What does 'punished' mean?" Alexandre asked.

"It means someone did something bad to him, because he did something wrong. Something against the rules."

"Oh," his son replied. "So like when Zeus punished Prometheus for giving man fire in that book mama read to us because he wasn't supposed to?"

The prince thought back to the book of Greek myths Belle had read to Alexandre and Vincent before bedtime the other day and nodded. "Yes, Alex. Prometheus is a very good example."

Alexandre smiled, pleased with himself for connecting his father's story to a story he recognized. "Well did the boy feel bad after?" he continued curiously.

"He did," the prince nodded. "He felt very bad. And angry and sad too. That is, until...he met someone who taught him that he had to learn from his mistakes if he wanted to move on from them. So he did. He started acting nicer, being more mindful of those around him. It's one thing to make a mistake, but even worse to keep on making that mistake, and not doing anything to improve yourself after. Do you understand, Alex?"

"I do now," Alexandre nodded. If the person in his father's story could learn from his mistakes, then so could he. "Papa?"

"Oui,_ mon trognon?"_

"Do I really have to dance with a girl at the ball next week?"

The question caught the prince off-guard. He began to laugh in spite of himself. "Not if you don't want to," he smiled. "I wasn't very fond of dancing either when I was your age. Just stay close to Chip or your mother. And remember to always be on your best behavior. We don't want another situation with Sultan jumping on poor Noelle again, right?"

"She sounds like a toad when she sings," Alexandre said, making a face at the memory. But his father could see a small smile on his son's face as well. He knew that their argument from earlier today had disappeared from his mind.

* * *

Shortly after this conversation, the prince walked Alexandre back to his room and tucked him into bed for the night.

"Papa, wait!" his son said before he blew out the candle. He reached out from underneath his pillow and pulled out a large brown feather.

"What's this?" his father asked curiously.

"It's the feather I wanted to show you," he replied. "Chip and I found out from a book in the library that it's from the _aquila_ chrys-_chrysaetos,_ the golden eagle. I was going to give it to the twins, but then I changed my mind. I want you to have it."

His father smiled as he accepted the gift. "Thank you, Alex. I'll be sure to put this in a safe place."

As he closed the door behind him, the prince reminded himself again that Alexandre was not an extension of him. But he still wanted the best for his him, and hoped that he would not become the spoiled and selfish prince he'd been so long ago. He couldn't help but be protective of him for that reason. The prince was not a perfect man, but for his children he would try to be the best father possible.

* * *

_"Experimental" means that even though this one-shot was written within the universe of my first BATB fanfic, I don't actually consider it to be a part of my canon for that story. I wrote it primarily as a way of toying with certain themes that MIGHT appear in my sequel fanfic (whenever I feel ready to write it), and just because I don't want to be the 90% of fanfic authors there who write about Belle and the prince having a daughter in post-movie, but never a son._

_As always with my post-movie one-shots, I leave the prince here unnamed, so those who aren't regulars to the BATB fanfiction archive aren't scratching their heads over the casual use of his fanon name 'Prince Adam' (Glen Keane, Beast's animator has stated in many interviews already that the Prince doesn't have a name, so I figure leaving him unnamed is really as close to 'canon' as I can get. For multi-chapter stories I stick to his fanon name, but for one-shots like this I try to be a little more ambiguous)._

_Thank you for reading!_

___C__over image credit: __Jeune garçon by Jean-Baptiste Greuze from the Musée Condé in Chantilly, France._


End file.
